Presentation at the Global Studies Conference, Krakow Poland

August 6, 2019, Posted in  News&Updates

On June 27 2019 Michelle DeRobertis gave a presentation at the Twelfth Global Studies Conference, held in Krakow, Poland. Her presentation was based on the abstract submitted by TCSC founder Joseph Kott, prior to his untimely death last February. His abstract was entitled:
Global Inspiration for US Urban Transport Innovation.

Joe’s vision was to present to the multidisciplinary conference how the global exchange of ideas has improved U.S. transportation and furthermore, such information exchanges are important to continue. His abstract is presented below.

Abstract:

Since the era of urban transport reform and focus on more sustainable
mobility in America began in earnest in the early 1990s, Americans have
looked abroad for inspiration. Americans have studied, then eventually
implemented, bicycle transport innovations from the Netherlands and
Copenhagen; bus rapid transit solutions from Curitiba, Brazil, and
Bogota; Columbia, rail passenger transport; and land use integration in
Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Singapore; public transport planning in
Canada; residential traffic management (“traffic calming”) ideas from
the Netherlands, Britain, and Australia; a “Vision Zero” (no traffic
deaths) approach to traffic safety from Scandinavia; and safer ways of
managing traffic at street and road junctions from western Europe and
Australia; among many other innovative ideas. The intellectual and
technological transfer of ideas from abroad has been facilitated by US
federal transport agencies, academic institutions, and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), the experience of individual American urban
transport scholars and practitioners, and the proliferation of
information available in print and digital form. America, which has long
seen itself as “exceptional”, thus sui generis in all things including
transport, has reached out globally for solutions to pressing urban
transport problems. How and why this is so is a story of successful
globalization.

Keywords: Sustainable Transport, Technology Transfer, Global Diffusion
of Best Practices

To view the call for papers for the 2020 conference, to be held in Montreal June 4-5, 2020, go to onglobalization.com